Carolyn will be speaking next week, Tuesday May 13^th, in Fallon Nevada. Check with your Relief Society president and join Carolyn. This is a meeting for both Fallon Stakes so don’t miss out! Be sure to let her know you read her articles here at Nauvoo Times.

Lt. General Russel L. Honoré (Retired) who was the 33^rd commanding general of the U.S. First Army and commander of Joint Task Force Katrina said:

We want more than just a culture of preparedness — we are striving for a culture of self-reliance. Although the prepared person may have the goods they will need to survive an emergency, the self-reliant individual has in addition the capabilities, judgment, and resourcefulness to manage his own affairs, independently.

Recently we had a friend who is a law enforcement officer tell us we are just an incident away from anarchy.

Should the grid go down for more than a few days, or prices go up so families are priced out of the grocery market, or medical expenses continue to rise, even though we were promised we would be better off, he believes we will see bands of desperate people attacking others for food and provisions.

President Joseph F. Smith explained the importance of temporal salvation and its relationship to spiritual salvation this way:

President Marion G. Romney said:

To the degree we fail to prepare and become self-reliant, we give up our free agency — one of the most precious gifts from God.

So how can we create a culture of self-reliance within our homes? To create a culture of self-reliance, a yearning for independence in temporal matters must become a constant in our homes. It must become second nature in everyday living.

As with a diet, we cannot starve for a short time, lose a little weight and then assume we are done. Self-reliance needs to be a change in our lifestyle in the same way weight loss requires a change in lifestyle. It means not just a change in our habits, but a change in the very way we think.

Begin by determining which emergencies may affect your family. Approach this as you would evaluate what you need in the way of insurance.

Could there be a flood, house fire, burglary, hurricane, earthquake, wildfire, chemical spill, terrorist incident, tornado, or dust storm, job loss, decreased spending power do to rising food and medical costs?

You would pay for insurance to cover these disasters if you thought them likely. Here comes the change in thinking, now you will establish your own insurance against these possibilities. Each week think about your self-reliance insurance.

I have called self-reliance a “General Store.” Remember general stores of old? They were the place you went to purchase food, clothing, medicine, tools, garden seeds, fabric, candles, school supplies, stamps — just about everything you needed to care for a family and run a household. As you consider yourself and your family, ask yourself what is missing from your General Store.

Consider the following steps to develop a culture of self-reliance in your household:

1. Set-aside money each week to "pay" your self-reliance insurance. Purchase those items that your General Store is lacking. Help your children to understand that just as a storekeeper has to sacrifice to purchase their first inventory to stock their store, you may also need to sacrifice to establish yours.

When you have met those goals and stocked your cupboards it will be easier to throw together a last-minute party after the big game or to invite friends to stay for dinner. If your kids signed up to bring something to school, but forgot to tell you until they were about to leave — more than likely they will be able to go to your General Store and find it.

There will never be a time when friends drop by that you can't offer a snack, and never again will you have to tell a Relief Society president that you just can't help out a family in need.

2. Involve your family in the adventure and change their thinking also. Ask them to watch and search for bargains.

My sister-in-law called last week to let me know a local chain store was closing out their canning lids. In May? Why would you close out canning lids at the beginning of canning season? I ran down and stocked up. I can now preserve 156 bottles of food for less than $10.00 in lids.

Your spouse and children can become detectives in the same way, when they know the plan and what is needed to stock your family’s General Store.

Each year we wait for binders, pencils, crayons, and notebooks to go on sale at the beginning of the school year. When they get to bargain prices it is time to stock up for the next year. After all, the bargains come a week or two after the first week of school when most people have already had to purchase supplies to meet the teacher's requirements.

3. Learn new skills. Summer is almost here, and schools are letting out for a few weeks or months. Now would be a great time to take on some projects as a family. Learn to cook using only foods from your General Store. It really amazes me how few people know how to make a cake or a batch of pancakes from scratch.

Learn basic car care. Learn to change a tire, put on snow chains, change the oil, fill the radiator, learn to wash and vacuum the car like a pro. Learn to sew. Learn to build a fire. Learn to set up a tent. Learn to use every item in your 72-hour kits. All these skills are important in case there is no one available to provide the service.

4. Think through a disaster and plan your response. When we are faced with a crisis, we mortals tend to respond in the same way. Why? Because that is the way our brains are programmed to handle extreme stress. First, we cannot believe the crisis has occurred.

We have friends who lost their barn with their camping supplies, food storage and more. They could smell the smoke but it was not until a passer-by stopped that they realized it was their barn. We just don't want to believe it could be happening to us.

The second phase is a stupor of thought. We may know we need to take action but we just can't move. We may even stand and stare at our 72-hour kit and never pick it up. Last of all, we move into action.

All these stages are faced by everyone during a crisis. The difference in how quickly one person moves from phase one to phase three, compared to another, depends on how much knowledge they have absorbed before the disaster happens.

The more you know, the more you have thought through how you will react and what you will do – and the more success you will have in dealing with and surviving the emergency.

5. Study the Scriptures. As we strive to create a spiritual home we study the scriptures. Remember what the Lord has said, "Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal; neither any man, nor the children of men; neither Adam, your father, whom I created." (D&C 29:34)

We must study and work until we truly understand that all the Father asks us to do is for our eternal salvation. I recently heard a speaker talk about the relationship between stress and productivity. He explained that those who are stressed cannot be productive.

As stress is reduced, we become more creative and more capable of solving problems. Preparing reduces stess when a trial comes, and it will come.

The Lord has told us exactly how to reduce stress and become productive, creative, and successful in every aspect of our lives. "Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God" (D&C 109:8)

He said to organize yourself, then prepare every needful thing. Then, we are prepared to establish a house of prayer, fasting, faith, learning and glory. This house will then be a house of order and God can become the center of all we are and all we do.

To begin your own journey toward a Culture of Self Reliance or to build your own General Store join Carolyn at https://www.facebook.com/TotallyReady Contact her at: Carolyn@TotallyReady.com